


One Day I'll Find Myself and Wrap It In My Love For You

by Anonymous



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Flashbacks, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-14 10:48:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29044875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Theon is trying, but sometimes it's harder than it looks.
Relationships: Theon Greyjoy/Sansa Stark
Comments: 1
Kudos: 2
Collections: Five Figure Fanwork Exchange 2020





	One Day I'll Find Myself and Wrap It In My Love For You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ChronicBookworm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChronicBookworm/gifts).



> Disclaimer: I don't own Game of Thrones, and I make no money from this. 
> 
> A/N: Title is from "One Day" by Genesis.

Some days, Theon paced. 

In fact, that was most of what he did certain days (and those certain days often outnumbered the others) – he would begin at one side of the tower and begin, turning his steps in one direction or another, and refusing to stop until he hit a wall so obviously that the entirety of his body crashed right into it, leaving him with black and blue marks all over his hands and feet, all over his legs and arms. And then he would turn and walk down the curved steps, looking down at each rock and brick and counting them one by one.

He would see the bruises, later, but not quite feel them. It took quite a bit for Theon to acknowledge pain these days, and he wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. 

It was Winterfell, Winterfell all over again, and in some part of his brain, on some of those days, he figured that he should feel at home here.

But nowhere was home when you were Theon Greyjoy _(when you were Reek)_ … Everywhere felt out of joint and wrong and twisted.

He rarely slept. When he did, he would toss and turn, his mind filled with images of Ramsay and his knife, of Ramsay and Reek.

Images like shooting stars, of Reek and the flashes of his life he would never be able to leave behind. 

“Theon,” he heard behind him. It felt distant, and he didn’t turn at first. He shook his head, slightly, attempting to clear it. Attempting to remember where he was, now, when it was so easy to throttle back to the memories. 

When it was so easy to throttle back into being Reek.

Suddenly, the voice was louder.

“Theon.”

Now, he jumped. He turned around quickly, and had he had his bow, he would have fired it. _(Maybe. Or he would have dropped it and gotten on his knees.)_

Sansa was standing there, her lips curled into an apologetic smile, as she looked at him.

“Didn’t you hear me? I was calling your name.”

She did not ask if he was okay, because she knew the answer. No one who had been around Ramsay was ever truly “okay” ever again.

“I did, a little,” Theon said, “but I didn’t realize that you were right there… did you… want me for anything?” 

Theon, also, did not ask if he was needed, because he was sure at this point that he was not.

“The council meeting,” Sansa replied, “We could use your insight… if you would like to speak on Yara’s behalf, given that she was unable to attend.”

Yara had gone back to Pyke, alone, to claim her rightful place. Theon tried to smile as he thought of her, and thought of Sansa, but smiling had started to feel unnatural a long time ago. It was odd to think that he had once been known for it, for that self-assured smirk that everyone had rolled their eyes at. 

He didn’t have time to dwell on it, however, to dwell on that other person he had once been who had been lost to the ages. Maybe he had been many Theons in his life so far, or maybe they had all formed into one. When he tried to think about it, it all made him feel dizzy and unsettled.

The only thing – the only person – who didn’t make him feel unsettled was standing right in front of him.

And so he brushed his tattered hands against the coat he was wearing (now that he could wear a coat to protect him against the Winterfell chill, a privilege he still hadn’t gotten used to) and forced a new attempt at a smile at her with all of his might.

“Hello, Sansa,” he said, extending one gloved hand to hold hers. “You really want me to speak to a council about… well… anything?”

“There’s a lot that you know, Theon,” she replied, and began to lead the way. That was true, he knew, but most of it he hadn’t wanted to know.

***

Theon found it hard to focus during the council meeting, and he found himself playing with the end of his glove instead. He found it hard to focus on a lot of things these days, and he wasn’t sure how long that had been going on. Maybe it had been ever since he escaped from Ramsay, ever since he didn’t have to be alert to every whim of Ramsay’s, every bizarre mood that seemed to overtake him at random with no rhyme or reason.

He found himself distracted watching Sansa, most of all, watching the tiny waves in her hair. She was beautiful, and he wondered how he had found it possible to live all those years with her before without realizing it. 

Then again, he had been silly and stupid and blind back then, so that wasn’t all that surprising, older than the tiny girl who always seemed like such a proper girl, a future Lady in the making. 

At the end of the meeting, people walked by him as if he wasn’t there. That was for the best, really – Theon still wasn’t used to all of these people, still wasn’t used to all of this activity. It would be a long time before he was used to anything other than the cold of the dungeons, the steel of Ramsay’s touch.

He worried if Sansa would turn everyone’s attention to him, if she would suddenly ask in front of everyone what he thought, and make him come up with something on the spot, watch him stammer and twitch.

But she didn’t; of course she didn’t.

Sansa knew his mind better than he did, sometimes.

***

Things had gone surprisingly back to normal after the Night King’s fall, which Theon wasn’t sure was necessarily a good thing. The Mother of Dragons, after all, had promised to break the wheel, and instead he felt he was staring at a wheel that was dusted off and a little shinier but otherwise very similar.

Not that there was anything Theon felt he could really say about it – he was committed, now, to following Sansa and to being the bow that delivered her arrows, not someone who was trying to get any notability in his own right. A leader was not what Theon was, and he was relieved to come to that conclusion.

That didn’t mean that he didn’t think about these things sometimes, though. The world was in an uneasy alliance with, somehow, Bran being declared to be King of Westeros. Theon had a lot of questions that he had chosen not to ask.

First of all, why had Bran allowed him to go up against the Night King, risking certain death? Why had he abandoned him at that critical moment, let him go off himself with nothing more than “you’re a good man”, as if that alone would protect him? Theon had seen a lot of good men die, after all – the best men tended to die first, and die worst, and leave the people who were either middle-of-the-road, pathetic, or evil left over at the end of it all.

And most of all, why had Theon lived?

Why had he looked into the ice-blue eyes of the Night King and been able to walk away with only a flesh wound? Maybe he had been changed in some way, some way he could never hope to fully grasp. Maybe some part of him had been left on the battlefield.

The world and the wheel had gone back to normal, but Theon had not gone back to normal.

In fact, he wasn’t even really sure what he would know what normal was. 

***

The next day, he passed Jon on the street, as he stepped through the frozen snow, not really going anywhere – not yet, anyway.

He almost walked by him, in fact, despite being close enough to bump shoulders, because after the battle with the Night King, Theon often felt as if he was in a daze.

He hadn’t died, but he should have – perhaps half of him had frozen, the important part, and the part that kept him walking around and talking had stuck around. Perhaps it was waiting in some sort of beyond, in the deep with the Drowned God (did the Drowned God come into play in a frozen lake, he wondered), for the rest of him to decide to join?

The injuries had washed away, as if by magic, and he wondered if Bran had had something to do with that, too. Maybe Bran had just decided to play with him; perhaps he had remembered some game Theon had played with him back when he had been the other Theon and he had smiled all the time to stave off the reality that he could find his head rolling off a rock if his father made a wrong move.

That hadn’t made it right, though. That hadn’t made anything he had done later right. Theon had learned not to try to justify, because Ramsay didn’t listen to justifications, or excuses, or even reasons.

So he no longer conjured them up for himself, and when Jon called, “Theon,” he couldn’t help but flinch and curl in slightly on himself. The name still felt foreign sometimes. And if Jon was calling it, that had to be the preamble to something very, very bad. Because Jon Snow had a lot of debts to settle with Theon over Robb.

He didn’t walk away, though. How could he, in Winterfell? How could he, in Jon’s own house?

So he looked up and met the man’s eyes.

“Theon,” Jon said again, “You’ve been avoiding me since we got to Winterfell. We need to talk eventually, don’t we? We need to figure out what… Everyone’s plan is going to be.”

Theon looked back.

“You are speaking as if I have some idea of what my plan is going to be. I don’t even know what my plan for the rest of the day is going to be. It’s not up to me.”

“What if you stayed here? You could help Sansa… As for me… I have to go help my Queen.”

“Your Queen,” Theon mused. “The Mother of Dragons.”

“You’re sworn to her, too. Aren’t you? Or does it not mean that much to you?”

“Not as much as the oath I swore to Sansa,” Theon blurted. “I told her I would protect her, no matter what, and that is what I’m going to do.”

Jon snorted.

“Protect her?” he asked. “I’m her brother. It’s my job.” He hesitated, and then said, “And to be fair… my sister has proven that she is fully capable of handling herself. I wouldn’t be the one to tell her that she needs protection from anybody at all. But least of all from you.”

“That’s fair.” Theon looked down and kicked his foot against the dirt.

“What? Aren’t you going to speak up for yourself, Theon? Or are you still Ramsay's kicked dog?”

Theon looked up and met his eyes again, slowly.

“No, I’m not. But I’m not who I was, either. That’s why I’m not going to take the bait. I’m here for Sansa in whatever way she needs me. What you think about it isn’t really my concern. If you accept my allegiance, that makes it easier, but I will do what I will do.”

He turned and began to walk away. That was easier and harder these days.

“Against the Night King,” Jon called, and Theon turned around. “You did okay, Theon.”

Theon gave a small smile and kept walking.

***

“Theon, you’ve been avoiding me the whole day.”

Sansa was standing in front of him in the kennels, where he had laid down and fallen asleep. It was easier to sleep in here, more familiar.

He looked up at her and blinked, slowly rising to his feet.

“I wasn’t,” he protested, and Sansa shook her head.

“What happened? Did Jon say something to do? Would you like me to thrash him about the head? Because I will, if you’d like.”

Theon let that small smile crack again. Sansa was good at that, good at helping him find some odd brightness in all of the darkness of the things he thought about and, sometimes worse, the things that he dreamed. 

“No, he didn’t say anything. But I don’t think I should stay here, now that the Night King is gone. The threat has passed.”

“You can’t think that. Not that every threat has passed, or even that any threat has passed. I need you by my side, Theon.”

“As what?”

“As counsel.”

Theon moved to sit back on the haybale. 

“Counsel to what?”

“Quit playing coy, Theon. As I said, you have much more to say than you think you might, and you know more than you will ever know. I let people pretend that I was a pretty princess for far too long, and that I should be married to some man or another to make an alliance, whether I could even stand them or not. You don’t need to pretend to be dumb, Theon. It’s frustrating and I’m tired of it. You can be so much more. I know you can be so much more.”

“So much more of what?” Theon asked, his mind too lost in feeling detached and down to really listen to what she was saying.

Sansa let out an exasperated sigh and leaned down, pressing a kiss to Theon’s lips suddenly. 

Theon’s eyes flew shut and he shivered, not expecting it and not knowing how to react. Sansa smelled so sweet – he tried to identify the smell, but he found it just out of his reach. He hadn’t been around a lot of sweet things in the last few years. 

Theon’s eyes opened very, very slowly, and then he kissed back.

He sank against Sansa, even as there was a little voice in his head – Reek’s voice – telling him that this was very bad, that Master Ramsay would find out and then it wouldn’t be very good for anybody. 

Master Ramsay would have allowed this, maybe, but only if he were the one calling the shots, only if neither of them wanted it. If Reek had still been a disgusting creature and Sansa had still looked the fair maiden, but not now.

Not when they were both something very different.

Whatever that was, exactly. 

Reek was warning him, but Theon tried to pay no heed. There was no point in listening to a person who had no power, a person who had to scuttle to survive, a person who was barely considered a person at all.

“Sansa… Is this really what you want?” he asked instead. That should be, he considered, the important thing – not what Reek wanted or whatever the weird ghost of Ramsay in his mind wanted. He needed to know what Sansa wanted. And then, maybe he could figure out what in the world Theon wanted.

“It’s what I’ve wanted for a while, Theon,” she replied. She crouched, slowly, and sat on a haybale. “I just didn’t know what to say.”

“Well, you could say what you want me to do… considering… uh… it might have been an easier proposition a few years ago.” Even as Theon tried to joke, the words came out shakily. Whatever Sansa wanted, she had to know that it was something that Theon wasn’t going to be able to give. 

“You think that I’ve survived all of these years without knowing how to improvise?” 

Theon blinked at her. He tried to chase out Ramsay’s voice from his head, but it was still there, chirping like a particularly obnoxious raven, crawling up his spine.

It was telling him that Sansa could never want to touch a creature such as Reek.

“I don’t believe that you can’t,” Theon said, “But to be honest, I’m not really sure why you would want to. You could have anybody – there’s a lot of men who would want to be with you for life, who would want to be the King of the North…”

“And you don’t. Which is one of the many reasons why I don’t want them, and I do want you. I wanted to be a princess once. It didn’t end well.”

And Theon had wanted to be a prince once, too. It also hadn’t ended well, had ended with Theon not even really knowing who he was anymore.

“If you want me…” Theon managed. “Then I’m here. I just don’t know how much I can do.” And his own voice was still whispering in his head about how much, maybe, he was still the one who had gone up and told Ramsay about putting the candle in the window and lighting it.

How much he was still the one who had knelt at Ramsay’s feet and begged.

Now, he wondered what would happen if he did the same with Sansa. If he got on his knees and asked her for guidance, because she seemed to always have it around her even when Theon had had no clue.

“Then let me take the lead, Theon,” Sansa said with a smile. “Theon of House Greyjoy.” She turned and latched the kennel door. This felt familiar, if not a little terrifying. He could remember taking the hand of this girl and that and slipping off to wherever was convenient. This might shape up to be a literal roll in the hay.

Theon shuffled in his spot, wondering if he should lie back or get on his knees or do something else entirely. This probably wouldn’t even go that far once she saw what was hidden on his body, all the merry marks of Ramsay, and the one thing in particular, the thing he didn’t talk about but everyone seemed to know about. Theon wondered if there were songs about him now, and that would be the one thing. Theon the Cock-less, I know, I know, I know. It would figure, wouldn’t it?

Sansa walked back over and started with his shirt, first, slowly undoing the strings looped together that held it shut.

When she pulled it back, Theon shuddered. Looking at that mess would be bad enough, and that would probably scare her away already. So many crisscrossed marks where Ramsay had played; he had always enjoyed playing with him. Theon had looked them over in the near-darkness of the kennel more than once before, or when he was put up on the cross, taking stock and wondering when would be the moment in which it would be enough. Enough for Ramsay to have had enough or enough for the Drowned God to come take Theon away for good.

That moment had never come.

And the Night King hadn’t been able to do it, either - that mark was across his chest just the same. Theon had stopped to consider sometimes that maybe this was to be his punishment – maybe he was set in stone, never to die and only to float through life and observe, to be caught like a fish (like a kraken). To keep making the same errors over and over again and to never actually move past anything at all or make himself worth something to any of the people around him.

He chased that thought with the realization that right now, in the moment, he was something to Sansa now.

The breeze in the kennels hit his skin and chilled it, ever so slightly.

“There aren’t any hounds around here, watching, are there?” Theon inquired, and Sansa laughed. 

“Would you like some? I could get you a puppy or two if they would warm your heart. Anything for you, Theon. But, no, not to watch us now. That would indicate… a lack of privacy. And they might be judgmental. I’m not sure. Or,” Sansa said as she pulled the trousers the rest of the way away and left them in a heap, “Inspired. That could be awkward.”

“A puppy…” Theon mused. “Well… Maybe. Not hunting hounds, though. Just regular puppies. Let’s not hold them in the kennels. Let’s keep them… or one… Let’s keep them with us. Our dogs… Our…”

“Let’s not talk about dogs now,” Sansa said, “I shouldn’t have brought it up.” She smiled. “I gave you a way to wiggle out. Now, lay back, and let me give you something else to distract you.” She began to kiss down his leg, over to his thigh. Theon hesitated and flinched. “It’s okay.” Sansa’s voice was soothing. “You know that I’ve seen it all before, right? I won’t be shocked, or horrified… I know exactly what happened.” Her eyes met with his, and Theon felt as if he was under her eye, under her examination. He tried to figure out what she was seeing, whether there was something that he could do to gather himself back up into the Theon Greyjoy he had once been.

Theon craned forward just a little bit, letting out a little shudder. His eyes fluttered as she held him close. The warmth beside her was almost too much. 

“Sansa,” Theon managed, “I mean, you aren’t feeling thinking that – are you going to?’

“If you want me to,” Sansa said, “Remember… We won’t do anything unless you want to. It won’t be like Ramsay, ever again. You don't belong to me, and you don't belong to anyone at all.”

Theon mused that she did not remind him that he was not like Ramsay. Would he have been, if he had been able to keep the power over Winterfell for much longer than he had? How far did his own dark side go, were he to let it run free?

“What are you thinking about?” Sansa pressed. That was, after all, the last thing that he wanted to reveal. He wanted Sansa to think of him as someone unmovable, someone solid, who existed only to serve her role as queen and who wouldn’t let her down or falter, who didn’t have as many doubts as Theon had every single day. He didn’t want to be the man anymore who had run away when Yara had needed him to save her. _Yara._

He should be glad that Yara even still spoke with him after how he had messed everything up.

But he shouldn’t be thinking about Yara right now, either, and he shouldn’t be thinking of everything other than how to make Sansa proud, how to make her happy.

“Theon. You have to talk to me. You can’t keep yourself closed up in your head.”

But he was. As so often he had been before, he already was.

***

_“Reek.”_

_Theon’s – no, Reek’s – head snapped up as quickly as he could make it move. He felt as if every move hurt in new and, detachedly, interesting ways._

_“Yes, Lord Ramsay?” Reek inquired, craning his head closer to Ramsay’s voice. He couldn’t see him yet, but that wasn’t always a good sign. In fact, it was a very bad sign, as he couldn’t tell what time of a mood Ramsay was in._

_Then again, a good mood and a bad mood tended to both end badly for Reek, though Ramsay’s rages tended to be a little worse than his humors._

_Ramsay’s boot crested into view, and Reek let his gaze slowly rise up to view him._

_“Reek, hello,” Ramsay said, and there it was. Ramsay was in a good mood. Maybe this would be a good night, then – maybe Ramsay would take pity on him and even let him sleep inside the castle tonight. It was a cold night, as so many were in Winterfell - a bone chilling night._

_“Hello, my lord,” Reek managed, peeking upwards._

_“I have received news from Petyr Baelish. It sounds as if marriage may be in my future.”_

_“Yes, my lord?” Reek inquired, wondering who exactly would marry Ramsay. There was Myranda, of course, but from the brief glimpses Reek had had of Roose Bolton, it did not seem like he would ever be in favor of such a match._

_“Why, yes. It’s someone you might even remember. I like to keep you waiting, though, Reek. Do you know why?”_

_Reek looked up, dreading whatever the answer was, but knowing he needed to play Ramsay’s game. Ramsay’s lines of questioning tended to get quite unpleasant if he didn’t get the answers he was looking for. Even if he was in a good mood. Sometimes, especially if he was in a good mood._

_Being around Ramsay must be like what riding on a dragon had been like in times before, Reek mused sometimes. Wonderous and terrifying too – mostly terrifying._

_“I hope that you will tell me, my lord,” Reek eeked out, after thinking about it for a long time. Ramsay loved nothing more than to be given an audience, and Reek was glad to supply it – well, compelled to supply it, to scoop himself out and provide it._

_“Because you have such the most precious look of surprise when you’re knocked for a loop, my Reek,” Ramsay explained, “It’s like someone let all of the air out of you. If I could keep you looking like that every single day for the rest of your life, I might choose to do it. But then again, I like plenty of other looks that you like to give me, too. You do like to give them, don’t you, Reek?”_

_“I do, yes, of course, my lord,” Reek stammered._

_“Then let me give you another one, my lovely Reek.”_

_And then the world went black all over again._

***

“Theon? Theon?”

Theon was confused for a moment, trying to figure out who “Theon” even was, feeling it a foreign name, someone else’s name. But the fact that he recognized who was saying it – Sansa, as always, Sansa bringing him back down to where he needed to be – broke him out of the step into the past.

He let himself suck a breath in his nose and then out again through his mouth as he looked at Sansa.

“Are you all right?”

He didn’t hear pity in her voice – and thank the Drowned God for that, for he couldn’t have handled pity – but instead understanding, as if they had both ended up on ships that had been blown off course sometimes. 

As if they had both been in the same boat, the same boat destined to sink that had somehow come aground without reason. 

Theon was still partially unclothed, he realized as he looked around to get his bearings, and they were still in the stables. Frozen to the spot, he wished he could get up and run. But that would look even worse. He could hear Yara teasing him in his head, asking if the new Theon was someone who ran away from sex, when previously he’d been so at the ready that he had even tried to bed Yara herself?

And so he stayed, trying desperately to meet Sansa’s eyes, and trying with even more difficulty to get his voice to muster words. Somehow, he was more scared now than he had been in Ramsay’s court, for here he was supposed to have some kind of power and he kept failing at actually harnessing it.

Finally, with what felt like impossible force, he pulled up his breeches and stood up, trying to brush the entire scene from his mind. 

“Theon?” Sansa said again.

“I don’t think it was a good idea,” he replied, unable to meet her eye, “Perhaps we should just stick to… stick to what’s necessary. You have a kingdom to rule over, after all.”

“A queendom,” Sansa corrected, with a small smile. “Let’s go back and find a place to discuss it.”

***

Theon had managed to finally fall asleep after tossing and turning in his bed for half the night, and now he was being jostled awake with very little preamble.

“Theon,” hissed Sansa’s voice, “We’re under attack. We need you in the council room.”

Theon didn’t have much time to consider exactly why they would need him of all people, as apparently the threat of certain death seemed to leave little room for self-doubt to remain, and he quickly dressed and then rushed down the dark (his eyes adjusting better to dark than light), running through the winding staircase to find himself looking, in pale candlelight, at Sansa and Jon.

It was then that he asked the question: “Under attack by who?”

The battle against the Night King had taken with it not only the Night King himself but, it had seemed, most of their other would-be enemies. Who would have an interest in taking Winterfell, for one, and why hadn’t Bran seen fit to warn them since he would have had to have seen it coming?

Now that Theon considered it, he hadn’t seen the inscrutable new version of Bran in days.

Jon looked at the two of them, hands knotted together. His eyes showed a shame that Theon hadn’t been expecting, but recognized all too well.

“They’re from Castle Black,” he said.

“I thought you were a big deal in Castle Black,” Sansa mused, “Weren’t you elected the commander?”

“It wasn’t exactly undisputed,” Jon replied, “And when I left… Well, there was a lot of argument about me being Stannis’ man. That on top of protecting the wildings… There weren’t a small number of people who wanted me gone. They did actually kill me.”

Sansa cocked her head to the side.

“Care to repeat that, Jon?”

“They killed me. And then I came back.”

Theon craned in, not sure if he had heard him right either. 

“This… Red Woman brought me back… That isn’t important right now. The important thing is that we’re under attack and if they’re able to take Winterfell, then all that we were working for is going to be ashes.” Jon looked over at Theon and sighed. “Theon… All that I’ve said to you, and the way I’ve treated you… I’m sorry. You saved Sansa, and I’m going to be forever grateful for that. And I hope I won’t have overstayed my welcome if I ask you for your help now. You helped defeat the Night King, after all.”

“Not on purpose,” Theon said, trying to laugh it off a little bit. He wasn’t a hero – at least, he hadn’t intended to be for a long time. Once, he had wanted to be a conqueror, and he had wanted to be a prince. But everyone could tell how well all of that had turned out. “We should let the army know, I would assume.” He looked over at Sansa for validation.

“Have we tried negotiating?” Sansa inquired. “Maybe… We can find out what they want. We don’t need another bloodbath in Winterfell.”

“I mean, you can try,” Jon said, “But I think the condition they want is my head on a pike.”

Sansa flinched, and Theon glared at him, not that he had much room to talk when it came to tact.

“Okay, poor choice of words. But their issue is with me, and they’re going to want to settle that. I don’t think you can convince them it’s not in their best interest when they’re thinking with their bloodlust instead of their coffers.”

“I’m willing to try,” Sansa said, “I will not have my home go up in flames again.”

Jon shook his head.

“You’re trying for something that’s impossible. These are not people who you can reason with. We shouldn’t waste time tipping our hand while we should be fighting.”

“I thought you were the one who had wanted peace,” Sansa declared, and Theon opened his mouth to say something, though he wasn’t sure what, and was cut off by Sansa continuing again, “You come back here and try to shrug off the fact that it was your offering an olive branch to the wildlings that angered them in the first place. But you refuse the olive branch now. What happened?”

“I learned that peace doesn’t usually work,” Jon said.

“Who taught you that? Your dragon queen?” Sansa fired back. “The one who murdered everyone in King’s Landing while you toddled after her, led by the wrong head?”

“There’s more to it than that,” Jon fired back, “More than you will ever know.”

“Both of you,” Theon began, but his voice was quiet and quickly trounced over.

“More to it?” Sansa fired back, “Oh please, tell me what’s more to it than her leading you by the cock? If I had long, blonde hair instead of red, maybe you would give me some better advice, would you think?”

“Well, it was some woman with red hair that brought him back from the dead, he said,” Theon pointed out, and Sansa shot him a dagger of a look.

“I want a plan. I don’t want any more bickering, I don’t want any more arguing, and I don’t want any more ultimatums. I want a plan for the least amount of bloodshed, or both of you are going out on your ear,” Sansa said. “Between the two of you, you need to come up with something that I can bring to the council without having to hang my head in shame.”

***

Theon had never been particularly good at diplomacy. He had been good, first, at loyalty, then at divided loyalty and then at falling over himself at any opportunity and finding himself constantly twisted into knots. But bringing different sides together had never been his strong suit.

He had been good at desperately flapping his wings and hoping he would survive the resulting fall.

As he sat there with Jon, he could not see but could rather feel the men from the Night’s Watch peeking into the windows, looming overhead the same way that Ramsay had loomed in Theon’s brain.

They would be closing in, and all of this would be for naught. These men were going to kill all of them, for reasons that if Theon was entirely honest he didn’t really understand – he hadn’t completely followed all of Jon’s machinations about wildlings.

But Theon hadn’t been good at following much lately, other than the need to jump into battle and the need to stay alive.

Survival and strategy weren’t too things that tended to go hand-in-hand for him these days. It was all about instinct, instinct and luck.

Maybe the Drowned God had a soft spot for him after all this time.

He was hoping that soft spot was going to hold out. He turned over his hand and began, with one hand, to trace the mangled fingers, to think back on each and every time he’d been under Ramsay’s thumb.

The way that Theon hadn’t been himself anymore, in any sense of the word. 

“Jon,” Theon spoke up, and Jon looked at him in confusion, as if he had forgotten that Theon was even still there. Theon wasn’t sure how long he had sat there in silence, but it had either been too long or maybe, just long enough.

“What?” Jon asked, leaning forward a little. Theon cleared his throat, trying to find his voice. That was one of those things that had been more difficult as of late – it seemed as if when Theon had had nothing of value to say, he had found a way to say so much more of it.

Theon brushed his hand against his thigh, sucked in a breath again, and then finally brought himself to speak.

“Maybe we don’t even need a negotiation,” Theon suggested, “Maybe all we need is a distraction. We need something that they hate more than you.”

“Thank you,” Jon said dryly.

At that point, Sansa had returned to the room. 

“I heard that,” she stated. “What do you suggest? If the Night King couldn’t quash this rivalry, then I’d like to know what you think might.”

“Lannisters,” Jon suggested. 

“There aren’t all that many of them left,” Sansa pointed out. “Not to mention they would probably need to, well, actually see some of them. How do we convince them of a threat when we don’t have the actual threat available for them ton see? They’ll simply run off of hatred of what they know. And what they know is what they will choose to fear, and what they will choose to hate.”

Or what they will choose to love, Theon mused. The more he had feared and hatred Ramsay, the more he had developed that odd love of him, that sense of peace whenever he was in Ramsay’s good books. That must mean something was wrong with him, Theon knew, but yet it had seemed a natural feeling.

It had also felt natural to feel himself become part of Ramsay at times. Perhaps he was the beating, bloody heart Ramsay had never had. 

“Theon,” Sansa said. “You were saying that you had a plan?” Her voice was quiet and gentle in his ear, and he took a deep breath. He knew this made sense in his head, but trying to lay out the plan in front of them was something else entirely. He had been used to taking orders for so long and being able to run into the Night King – well, that had been easy. All he had had to do was be brave. 

Being smart was a different thing entirely, and he found himself unsure of his footing. 

“So we find something that already scares them,” Theon began. “Something that would scare anyone.”

The three of them exchanged looks and then nodded. 

***

“The fact that we’ve found something scarier than the Night King is more than a little bit concerning,” Sansa mused, chipping away at the stone before her. “I’m glad that I was always good at sewing. I didn’t know that it would come in handy in this sort of situation, however.” She shut her eyes for a moment and sighed, curving the chisel to the side to make the underside of a terrifying, all-seeing eye. She didn’t need a reference point, Theon knew, because she could never forget. Neither could he.

“Are you sure this is going to work?” Jon asked. “I mean, these men are pretty fired up with hatred of me. If you think some kind of puppet show is going to scare them off, then…” 

But as Theon and Sansa lifted the huge stone figure, Jon’s complaints turned to a stunned silence, and Theon knew exactly why. The figure was a dead ringer for Ramsay, other than being stone rather than flesh, and it was even taller than the man himself had been, making it even more imposing.

“It needs something else,” Sansa mused. 

“I think that’s enough,” Theon replied quietly. 

“They know Ramsay is dead,” Sansa pointed out. “So it needs something else.”

She shoved a pail of snow in Theon’s direction. 

“Ramsay as a white-walker. This will haunt my dreams for certain,” she said in a voice as stone-cold as the snow itself. 

“He already does,” Theon replied. Jon looked back and forth between the two, not quite understanding because, after all, how could he? He had not been there. He had only heard the stories – even seeing Rickon’s death was only the shadow of Ramsay’s true nature.

Sansa looked at Theon and nodded, ever so slowly, letting out a soft hum. 

Maybe by hoisting him and rolling him along, they would have shoved him out of their memories.

Maybe Theon could still have that to hope for.

***

They opened the gates of Winterfell and pushed him out. Theon felt that Arya would have appreciated the ingenuity as much as her sister did – where was Arya these days, anyway? He hadn’t asked, because there were too many dead and feared dead. It didn’t do any good to bring up the names of people you loved, only so you could lose them all over again.

Theon hadn’t fully expected the rogue Night's Watch to flee. He hadn’t seen them, after all, hadn’t seen their eyes to be able to check if they were bloodthirsty and committed, ready to kill Jon at any cost to themselves. Men who were willing to sacrifice could be men who were impossible to scare.

That had been the way Theon had been, after all, when he had faced the Night King. There had been nothing left to lose, and the fear had run off of him like sweat until there was none of it left.

When the stomping of feet in retreat filtered into the gates of Winterfell, Theon stood astonished. 

And then he sat on the snowbank, ran his hands over his face, and wondered at it all. 

***

“That idea was a smart one,” Jon admitted later, but Theon could tell that he wasn’t really looking at him. That he was looking past him.

Theon decided that that was all right, for there had been no bloodshed.

The first day that he could remember when he hadn’t been faced with the prospect of hearing someone scream for hours, or hearing many screams for days.

Jon ignoring him was a small price to pay.

But then why did he feel twisted and inside out all over again?

***

Theon spent the night pacing in his chamber, feeling boxed in and closed in, wishing he had opted for running out into the snow and collapsing there. After all, he pictured latches and bars on the doors even when there were none – especially when there were none, as that was Ramsay’s favorite game of all; one that revolved around an illusion of freedom that always came with a price.

There was a rapping on the door that jolted him upright.

He crept towards it, slowly. In the back of his mind he pictured the way Ramsay had seemed to rise again, cased in ice, looming forward. No wonder they had run; he would have run too. Of course he would have run if, someone, he had known.

Ramsay had been far too good at playing a wolf hidden inside a sheep for Theon’s liking, and the thrumming at the door – there it went again, tap-tap-tap-tap, low and careful and consistent, almost as if it was actually just the beating of his own hard – made him hope for any chance not to answer. 

Perhaps he could go back and feign sleep.

Perhaps he could climb out the window and leap to safety, as he and Sansa had managed to do once before. To tumble into the snowbank and, this time, maybe hide there, because there seemed to be nowhere left to go on the outside. He couldn’t return to Pyke now that he had been run out of there, even if Yara invited him back, and there was far too much open space if he fled to anywhere else.

And then there was Sansa. Sansa was here, after all, and he had sworn to protect her with everything he had, even on the days when that wasn’t much.

He crept towards the door again and felt it with the back of his hand, as if to check for fire brewing on the other side.

And then slowly, tentatively, he opened it.

He was nearly knocked over when Arya burst into the room, hands high and either hugging him or punching him – he wasn’t entirely sure which.

Theon’s face crept into a smile and he knotted his hands together with a shaky sigh. 

“I didn’t expect you,” he admitted, and he hadn’t.

“I didn’t expect me either,” Arya replied. She walked into the room and sat in the chair that was in the corner, and sat down in a flourish. ”I need to know what your intentions for my sister are.”

Theon stared at her. Of all the things that he thought he might face on the other side of the door, this was not only one of the most unexpected but, potentially, one of the most terrifying. He hadn’t seen little Arya properly in a long time, and the look behind the eyes had gone from defiant to cold since she had left Winterfell.

Now, he didn’t really know quite what to say to her.

“You fought in the battle,” she said, gesturing to the angry scar on his stomach that seemed to show, somehow, no matter what it was that Theon war, as if to remind the entire world that this time, he had stood and fought and this time, the Night King had tried to fell him but something (Bran? The Drowned God?) had stopped him.

“You did too,” Theon replied. He had seen Arya on the battlefield, but only from afar. She always seemed to be moving – not quite running away, but running towards. Arya had always been a girl with plans, and there was no reason to suspect that that was changing anytime soon. “You defeated him. That’s what saved my life, I think.”

“Don’t flatter me,” Arya spat. “You haven’t given me the answer that I was looking for. You have been creeping around my sister and I demand to know exactly what you’re up to with her.”

Theon wished he had the words to describe, or even knew himself, exactly what he had with Sansa. There had been something when they had jumped from the snowbank, or maybe there had been something when they had run through the forest.

Maybe there had been something when she thought she was telling him goodbye for the very last time.

But now, now Winterfell was the first priority, and what was he supposed to do to move in front of Winterfell? So much of this had been his own fault, after all – what could he ask for now, truly?

But he didn’t say any of that to Arya, just mulled it over in his head as he bit down on his lip and then worried it with his tongue.

“You’re doing that thing,” Arya said, “And I hate it. You’ve been doing it quite a bit since you re-emerged again. Sometimes I used to hate that creepy smile that you had so very much, but now I’d almost wish for it back if it were to save me and the rest of the world from that pensive look. It looks as if you’re straining a tendon in your crotch or something equally unflattering. Why is the question so difficult for you to answer, Theon? Or whatever you’re calling yourself these days?”

“Theon,” he said the name quickly. “Always Theon.” He hoped he would be.

“So, Theon. Of House Greyjoy. What exactly are your plans with my sister, the Queen in the North? Are you trying to climb into her bed so that you can get another crack at ruling over Winterfell?”

Theon’s eyes went wide. 

“Wouldn’t have expected you to know about that first part,” he said, but the quip had no claws. Theon rarely had any time for claws anymore. “And I don’t want to rule anything. It’s been proven not to agree with me. If Sansa wants to be with me, then I wish to be with her. That’s it.”

Arya crossed in front of him, letting out an exasperated sigh.

“You never made it to my list,” she said, and Theon had no reply for that as he had no idea what she was talking about – but he also knew that with enough time given, Arya would tell him. She didn’t tend to stand on ceremony. “The list of people who I planned to kill. I’m not sure why. After Bran and Rickon… well, but maybe somehow I knew that they weren’t truly gone. Sometimes, people can just know a thing because they know it. Like magic.”

“Should I be relieved or offended at not being on your list?” Theon inquired. “And I wish I could tell you more about Sansa and I but… I don’t know. I’m sure that she will leave when being with me grows tiresome, and it tends to. It grows tiresome being me.”

“Then quit feeling sorry for yourself,” Arya replied, “They told me at the gate that you faked out the entirety of the Night’s Watch. I saw men running back so fast that they left their shadows in the wind. You mean to tell me that means nothing at all? You can be a hero, Theon, if you stop crying about it all the time.”

Theon glared at her, trying to figure out how to respond. She had a point, but also, every second tended to be a struggle – always counting down, checking where he was and who he was and always looking for Ramsay anywhere he might be.

“I’d like to be,” he said finally, deciding that maybe that was some part of the truth.

“Then go tell that to my sister. She’s up in her chambers waiting for you, you know. I’m told that ladies don’t like to be kept waiting.”

***

Theon rapped on Sansa’s chamber door.

“Your sister came to see me today,” he said by way of introduction when she walked over to open it, and she smiled.

“She came to see me too, you know. It’s what she does. She’s always going to be out there fighting.” Sansa stepped to the side to allow Theon to enter the room, but he made no move yet. “It used to annoy me, back when we were kids. Do you remember that? Being kids? Running around this place as if nothing at all could stop us.”

“A lot of things stopped us,” Theon whispered. And he didn’t have to say what they were, of course he didn’t. That was the nice thing about being in a room with Sansa. 

They could simply stand in the same memory without having to talk about it, he realized. They could see the same things, feel the same frozen breeze run over them.

And that was what finally chiseled down Theon’s wall. He wasn’t sure what he had been afraid of all along (Losing her? Loving her? Becoming engulfed into her as he seemed to apt to be these days? Maybe all of them at once – or maybe those were what he wanted now, too. Maybe that was what love was, all of those tucked into a spiny little ball.)

“Well,” Sansa replied, “Now they did. But not before. It’s not like…” And Theon was sure that she was about to say that they were still the same people, but he knew that wasn’t true just as much as she did.

So instead, she leaned in and pressed her lips to Theon’s all over again. But this time, he could melt into her – and this time, he did.

He let his mind turn off _(let Ramsay turn off, stop commanding him for once, give him a break for being such a good, good Reek)_.

His hands traveled up Sansa’s side to her shoulder, gently brushing against her breast for just a second (he needed to remember how to do this all over again, how did he do this again?) and then stroked his fingers over her neck with gently, soft brushes.

Sansa let out a little, gentle moan, almost a yawn. They began to move backwards, to the bed, and it was almost as if they were both dancing now, gliding now.

He still felt as if he would have been more at home back in the stable again, but here he was.

Theon’s hands slid, now, to Sansa’s hair, soft and wavy. He tried to think about when he had first realized how beautiful she was – sometime before she had left for King's Landing, maybe? But no, not then. She had been around him but they had traveled in separate winds, his a tumultuous one and hers an artful one.

And beauty, after all, was what she had proven herself to be in so many ways. 

“Relax, Theon. I don’t think we may get another chance to relax for a long, long time.”

And, as she kissed him, he did.

***

“I’m not staying here. I came back to make sure you were still alive and you are, so I’m leaving.”

Theon blinked a moment and tried to recall exactly how he had ended up in this fight between the two sisters, and wondered exactly how he could get out of it as quickly as possible and still leave with all of his remaining limbs more or less intact. 

“Arya, we need you for Winterfell. You’re too old to be running off,” Sansa counseled, and Arya gave her a look that would have struck her dead if looks could kill.

Sansa looked over at Theon as if he was supposed to weigh in on this. 

He opened his mouth and managed, “Arya, maybe if you wanted to stick around for a little while… well, that would help. I think we’re still rebuilding, after everything, after the Night King. It’s not that they don’t need you out here but… I think. I know, that we need you here.”

Arya looked back and forth between the two.

“I don’t know about that,” she said.

But she stayed.

***

“We should do something formal,” Sansa announced one day, “Like… a wedding. To show that we are going to be one.”

Theon gave her a cock-eyed glance and shook his head.

“Haven’t we both had more than enough of weddings? Why not just keep going on as we have been?” His voice, perhaps, betrayed some slight panic after all. “I mean, why would we want to do that? And have everybody… know? And be talking about us?” 

“Why not let them talk, Theon? They have been talking already, after all. Give the smallfolk a way to spend their days.”

“But I don’t want to be the subject of everyone’s… discussion… and speculation… and….”

“Get a hold of yourself,” Sansa told him with a smile, “You didn’t use to be this nervous, Theon. Didn’t you once want to be the one who the bards sang about?”

Theon rolled his eyes.

“What the hell are they going to sing about me, Sansa? About how I’m Theon Turncloak but I keep coming back again and again?”

“It’s not being a Turncloak to have your loyalty divided,” Sansa replied, “And maybe you started out shaky, but you ended up being loyal to everyone. You helped me, you helped Yara…”

“I helped Ramsay,” Theon mumbled, looking down.

“We both did,” Sansa said, “And they could call us both turncloaks. But you know what? The things that we had to do… We did them. And maybe some of them we didn’t. But at the end of the day, we ended up alive. Who else can say that? Most of the people who we knew are dead, now. And we’re alive. Maybe we’re not whole, and maybe we never were. This world is cruel, Theon. But right now you have a choice, and you can either continue to be cruel to yourself right along with it, or you can let yourself off the hook. And I think you can garner which one I would prefer that you do.”

Theon looked up at her.

“Is this really what you want? To be stuck with me… forever?”

“Marriage is not such a big deal to me,” Sansa said, “You will be my third husband. But, of course – you will be my last, as well. And I will be your first wife, Theon. So get used to me telling you what to do.” They both cracked a smile at that.

Theon hesitated.

“If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure. Are you?”

He didn’t hesitate anymore.

“I’m sure.”

***

Yara sailed in for the wedding, looking every inch the warrior she was – but that wasn’t anything new, after all. 

She watched the proceedings with a somewhat skeptical eye, but as far as Theon could tell ultimately decided to be happy for her wayward younger brother.

That didn’t stop her from goading Theon with reminders of how the marriage might be a tad – different – after the ceremony, however. 

“You must learn how to use those fingers, brother,” she said, twiddling her own in the air once she had him alone. Well, if in the corner at a table with the two of them and an exasperated Arya counted as “alone”.

“I don’t know,” Arya said at last, “Everyone was asking the Red Woman for this and that, I don’t know why you didn’t just get her to help you out, Theon.”

Theon’s eyes went a little wide and he began to look around for his bride, who was in hushed conversation with Jon, half-hidden beside a snowbank. Theon wondered whether Jon were sharing his doubts on the union – well, two late now, as it was about to begin. He could hear the voices in his head, all of the reasons that Jon would say that Sansa couldn’t, wouldn’t, shouldn’t marry Theon, trying to morph into his father who had actually been his uncle in the end. Or maybe trying to morph into his father, too – Theon didn’t know anything about Rhaegar Targaryen and what he had been like. Maybe he had looked every inch like Jon, tall and commanding and sure of himself.

Theon had never known that much of his own father, either, now that he thought of it. He had felt like some sort of a shadow, or like the Drowned God himself – to be feared and to be worshipped, but not really to be known.

Ned Stark had been different. He had spoken to Theon, would kneel to speak to him sometimes. But Theon also knew that maybe Ned would kneel as he sharpened the blade to kill Theon if he had to.

Because, just like for the Drowned God, the most important element was that of vengeance, or justice, or whichever name they dressed it up as.

When Jon appeared at Theon’s side, Theon twitched and nearly jumped. He would have run as far away as he could _(float across on a ship, maybe, go back home to Pyke or away to Braavos or anywhere, anywhere at all because he was on full alert... maybe he would always be on full alert and)_ …

“Theon,” Jon said, and when Theon looked back at him he realized that Jon must have said it more than once.

 _I don’t like to ask for anything twice,_ sang a voice in Theon’s head.

“Yes,” Theon replied, stepping forward. As he did, he realized that his head bowed slowly, as of its own accord. He didn’t have time to explain it, as the motion seemed to have been baked into him now and he was unable to fight against it.

“I would like to congratulate you,” Jon Snow continued, “You can look up at me, you know. You don’t need to bow your head when we speak. Sansa is the new Queen of the North, and as her consort you are worthy of my own respect. And, well, as my sister’s husband, you soon will be as well. I know that you would never think to harm Sansa.”

“Never,” Theon echoed.

Jon reached out and touched Theon on the shoulder, leaning back a little when Theon flinched.

“I think it will take time,” Jon said, “After all, most things tend to. And I don’t know that we will be… close, the way that you and Robb were. But I’m going to try. Because everything is different now, and maybe we can figure out a reason for that. Now, come here.”

Theon slowly stepped forward, batting away in his mind the day that he had walked Sansa forward to marry Ramsay.

He would be stepping into a future that he wasn’t sure about yet. There might be terrors ahead, and he might not live to see the morning. Worst of all, he still wasn’t sure if he could even trust himself. Would he make the right choices, or would he run all over again? Was his place back at Pyke, maybe, and he was wasting his time here?

And if he were back at Pyke, he would know that he would be wondering the same exact thing. There was no right answer.

But maybe that meant that there wasn’t any wrong one, either.

Jon looked at him through the darkness and then lifted a torch.

They would be married by the Old Gods, and Theon hoped that the Drowned God would be all right with that. If he wasn’t, well…

That would be a problem for another day.

Theon walked to the heart tree, and remembered the day that he had heard his name whispered through his ears, reminding him of who he once was and who, on some level, he would forever remain.

He could see Sansa walking, and he knew that it was true. He was Theon Greyjoy – for better, and for worse. For Old Gods and New, by the Drowned God, and even by the fallen Night King.

And, somehow, the future would be bright.


End file.
